East Cleveland History

I have started this Blog to preserve memories of what it was like to grow up in East Cleveland, Ohio during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. I remember it as a fine place to live, learn and enjoy my youth. From time to time I will post memories and invite others, who grew up in East Cleveland to do the same by clicking on comments below.
Since these postings are written in chronological order, you may want to read the oldest posting first.

Thursday, May 14, 2015

On March 23, 2015 I posted a
description of the Shuttle Yearbook Project.I developed that project with the Director of the East Cleveland Public
Library.The goal of the project is to
have a copy of every Shuttle Yearbook posted on the website of the East
Cleveland Public Library www.ecpl.lib.oh.us/yearbookhtml.

The project requires those of us with copies of the
Shuttle to lend those copies to the Library.The Library will, at their own expense, scan the lent Shuttles onto
their website and return the Shuttle to its owner.There was considerable interest in this when
I posted in March.So far the Library
has received 5 Shuttles for scanning.The Library and I thank those who lent their Shuttles and hope that
others will do the same.

The books will be scanned in batches and the first
batch will be sent to the vendor in early June.It isn’t too late to get your Shuttle into this batch.If you miss this deadline, you could get your
book into the next group for scanning later in the summer.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

East Cleveland Mayor Supports Merger With Cleveland

The Cleveland Plain Dealer published this article by Brent Larkin today 3/26/15.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton has taken the first step towards the only thing that can save his city -- a merger with Cleveland. That merger involves a long, complicated process. At some point
Norton might change his mind, or the idea may collapse due to lack of
support in either of the involved cities.

But, to his credit, it's pretty clear Norton has decided there's no
other way out of a dire financial crisis that can't get better, and is
almost certain to get worse. "I have an obligation as an elected official to do whatever I can to
insure the best quality of life for the community now and in the
future," Norton told me. "Even if it means giving up my current position
as mayor."

Within the next week or so, Norton and his supporters will begin
collecting voter signatures to place on the ballot a measure asking
voters to approve a six-member commission -- with three members from
each city -- to negotiate a merger plan.

If voters in East Cleveland approve forming the commission, the Ohio
Revised Code dictates Cleveland City Council would then either accept
the decision to move forward, or decide against holding merger talks.

Cleveland would almost certainly agree to proceed with negotiations.
The six-member commission would have 120 days to agree to a plan. That
plan would then be placed before East Cleveland voters in an election.

If voters reject it, East Cleveland would slide into bankruptcy. If
voters agree to the merger, Cleveland City Council could either accept
the result and approve the merger, or leave the final say with Cleveland
voters.

Meanwhile, Norton is inching forward on the merger idea at a time when fringe elements in his city are threatening him with a recall election -- an idea that would create political instability at the worst possible time. "I am doing this totally aware of the potential political fallout for
me," said Norton. "In spite of those potential consequences, this (a
merger) is something we at least need to explore."
He's right.

From East Cleveland's standpoint, the evidence supporting a merger is
so overwhelming that it's difficult to see how anyone could summon a
logical argument against it. Bankruptcy is for cities burdened by huge
debt, places like Detroit. East Cleveland doesn't have a debt problem. It has a revenue problem -- the worst, by far, of any local government in the state.
East Cleveland requires about $17 million a year to effectively run
the city and provide residents with the services they deserve. Yet the
city's annual income is about $10 million -- and declining, forcing it
to borrow from nonpayroll funds to pay employees.

From a financial standpoint, State Auditor David Yost has labeled East Cleveland "the worst city in Ohio," a city that scrapes "the bottom of the barrel every payday." Helen Forbes, an attorney and East Cleveland resident appointed by
Gov. John Kasich to the state commission that helps oversee the city's
finances, put it this way: "We cannot survive this. It's beyond emotion.
It's all about the numbers. You cannot operate this city on $10 million
a year." With about 17,000 residents, the city has lost about half its
population in the last quarter century. About 5,000 of those 17,000 are
employed, 42 percent of the residents live below the poverty line. Home ownership has slipped to under 30 percent. And about 1,000
structures are classified as "distressed," meaning they desperately need
to be demolished.

East Cleveland is now in a state of fiscal emergency, subject to limited state oversight, for the third time since 1988. As Benjamin Clark, an assistant professor of public finance at
Cleveland State University's Levin College of Urban Affairs, wrote in a Jan. 14. Plain Dealer opinion piece,
"The time has come for East Cleveland residents to begin envisioning a
newfound sense of pride as members of the newest neighborhood within the
city of Cleveland."

Norton deserves support from the entire Greater Cleveland community
as he tries to save his city. Despite this avalanche of evidence crying
out for a merger, a vocal minority inexplicably opposes it, as do
perhaps a majority of council members. My family's roots in East Cleveland trace back to the early years of
the 20th century. Many of the best days of my childhood playing baseball
were spent at my grandparents' home at 13404 Fifth Ave. Nevertheless,
some opponents to the merger are quick to play the race card when
outsiders who care deeply about the city suggest any effort to fight the
merger is essentially indefensible.

That twisted logic suggests whites have no business telling residents
of a city with more than a 93 percent black population how to conduct
its affairs. This isn't a black/white issue. It's a green one.
My guess is a solid majority of the people who live there have already figured that out.

Brent Larkin was The Plain Dealer's editorial director from 1991 until his retirement in 2009.

The
interesting fact is that a merger of East Cleveland with Cleveland
would not immediately effect the schools or library. The East Cleveland School
system is separate from the City of East Cleveland and already includes
part of the City of Cleveland Heights. There are other examples of
School systems which include multiple cities or portions of cities for
example Cleveland and Shaker Heights. The East Cleveland Public Library
Board is appointed by the East Cleveland School Board. So a merger
would have no immediate impact on the Library.

Monday, March 23, 2015

The
Shuttle Yearbook Project

The East Cleveland Public Library was a major
influence in my life and I’m sure in the lives of all of who grew up in East
Cleveland.I’m here to tell you that the
library is alive and thriving under the leadership of Executive Director, Sheba
Marcus-Bey and her very capable staff.The wonderful original Carnegie Library landmark building has been
expanded over the years to better serve the East Cleveland community.One way the community is served is through the
state of the art computer services they offer.Those resources are also available to those of us who no longer live in
East Cleveland through the Library website www.ecpl.lib.oh.us.

An important resource for me in my research about
the history of East Cleveland has been the Shaw High School Yearbook (Shuttle).In preparation for writing this blog I visited
the library to review back issues of the Shuttle on file there.Unfortunately their collection was small at
the time.When I was President of the
Friends of the Beachwood Library, a box of Shuttles from the years 1978 – 1992 was
donated to our book sale.I immediately
removed them from the sale and contributed them to the East Cleveland Public
Library almost doubling the size of their collection.I recently discovered that the Library has
put complete copies of all their Shuttle yearbooks onto their website: http://www.ecpl.lib.oh.us/yearbook.html
. These copies can be read on line or printed out on your home printer.

Knowing how important Shuttles are to those of us
who lived in East Cleveland or are studying East Cleveland history, I contacted
Director Marcus-Bey with a proposal.My
proposal was that I would lend her copies of my Shuttle yearbooks, which were
not included on the Library website.I
further proposed that I would encourage everyone I know who owns Shuttle
yearbooks not on the Library website to also lend them to the Library for
copying to the website.Ms. Marcus-Bey
enthusiastically supported my proposal.She has agreed to post any Shuttle lent to the Library on their website
and return it to the lender.The Library
will support the cost of copying and uploading any Shuttles lent to them for
that purpose.Our goal is to have a copy
of each Shuttle yearbook on the East Cleveland Public Library website.You can help with this project.

Anyone with a Shuttle for the following years is
urged to contact the East Cleveland Public Library to support the Shuttle Yearbook
Project.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Momentum toward a merger of East Cleveland and Cleveland has increased. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that two prominent Cleveland City Councilmen have suggested that serious efforts to study the possibility of a merger be undertaken. At this time the Mayors of both cities have spoken in favor of a merger but spokesmen for the East Cleveland City Council have spoken out against it. Cleveland City Council President, Kevin Kelley and Cleveland Mayor, Frank Jackson have asked the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University to assist in their study of a possible merger of the two cities.

This blog first suggested the need for a merger back in September 2012. The issue heated up in November 2013 when former Cleveland City Council President spoke in favor of merger. Reaction to my initial suggestion and my recent posting about the issue has been mixed. One of the readers of this blog states, "I
don't see the advantages of being the bottom of Cleveland". Most readers of this blog remember the East Cleveland, which existed during the 1940s, 50s and 60s. We remember a well managed community with great economic resources. Unfortunately that situation does not exist today. East Cleveland needs help from its larger neighbor to maintain the remaining assets and develop more assets in the future. If handled correctly, a merger would be a win win proposition for both community s.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

This posting
is a bit of a digression from the history of East Cleveland during the 1940s
and 1950s with which I am more familiar.However, I believe those who follow this blog would also like to stay
current on issues affecting East Cleveland today. In previous postings I tried to avoid much
discussion of current issues, because for the most part I only know what I read
in the papers.My current knowledge of
East Cleveland has been gained through research I have done at the East
Cleveland Public Library and occasional visits to my old neighborhoods.

Like many of
you who grew up in East Cleveland and then returned to visit, I am shocked by
the physical deterioration of the town.Whole blocks of houses and apartments have been abandoned or burned out
and boarded up.Those housing units,
which are still occupied, tend to be in marginal states of maintenance.Most housing is not owner occupied.The population is the poorest of the
poor.Many of you have commented on my
blog about how depressing it is to see what has happened to our old home town.

There are
those who will blame the current state of affairs in East Cleveland on the
racial change, which occurred starting in the 1960s.I have received comments to that effect on
this site.I lived in East Cleveland
during the early 1960s while attending Western Reserve University.I studied sections of the City as part of an
Urban Sociology class project in 1962.Later in the decade, I walked all the streets of East Cleveland meeting
people as a candidate for State Representative.I met many of the new African-American citizens and found them to have
similar values, hopes and dreams as I and my long time East Cleveland friends
and neighbors.Unfortunately, White
flight, encouraged by real estate block busting tactics, moved too fast to
allow the development of a stable integrated community.

East
Cleveland became a stable majority African-American community by the
1980s.It was still a community of
middle class values, which encouraged strong families, home ownership and
property maintenance. Unfortunately, the transformation of East Cleveland into
a majority African-American community coincided with the major economic decline
of the Cleveland region resulting in what we know as the rust belt.This combined with the flight of the middle
class (both White and African-American) from the inner ring suburbs left East
Cleveland with a different population.The difference was not African-American or White.The difference was economic class.

Merger of East
Cleveland with Cleveland

Back in 2011
I started this site with the following comment: “An argument could be made that
East Cleveland had no clear identity of its own. Each part of East
Cleveland is like the community it borders. On the North it borders the
Collinwood section of Cleveland. On the West it is adjacent to The
Glenville section as well as University Circle and Little Italy. Finally,
on the South and East is Cleveland Heights. In many ways the
socio-economic groups, housing etc. in East Cleveland were quite similar to
those in adjacent communities.”I went
on to argue that East Cleveland did, in fact, have an identity of its own and
went on to describe that identity in detail.

In September
2012 I made the following comment in my presentation to an urban history class at
Case Western Reserve University:“As
much as it pains me to say it, there may not be a reason for the City of East
Cleveland today. In fact the very existence of the City of East Cleveland
may be a barrier to solving the problems of the area known as East
Cleveland. I already pointed out the similarities of sections of East
Cleveland with the neighboring cities. The problems of the economically
depressed population of East Cleveland are more appropriately the problems of
the entire Cleveland metropolitan area. If the area of East Cleveland
were a part of Cleveland and/or Cleveland Heights, the current concentration of
economically depressed people could be absorbed by the larger tax base of those
communities or Cuyahoga County. The barriers to land development within
the current boundaries of East Cleveland would be lowered. I even believe
that East Cleveland as it exists today is no longer a viable power base for the
African-American political establishment, if it ever was in the first place.”

Since my
presentation in September 2012, there has been considerable discussion in the
media and the community of East Cleveland about the possible merger of East
Cleveland with the City of Cleveland.

In fact, the
mayors of the two cities have come out in favor of that merger.Former Cleveland Council President and former
head of the NAACP, George Forbes seemed to initiate this discussion.There have already been examples of mergers
of some city services with those of Cleveland including the Water Department.A strong movement to merge the East Cleveland
Public Library with the Cuyahoga County Public Library failed due to opposition
from a small but vocal group of citizens even though the Library Board had recommended the merger. It now seems as if the greatest impediment to
the final merger will be the East Cleveland City Council.It will take a vote of the people to finally
decide the future of the community.

Last night I
watched a 40 minute program, which describes the heartbreak and despair felt by
current and former citizens of East Cleveland.That heartbreak and despair is similar to that which many readers of my
blog expressed, when seeing what has become of East Cleveland.The difference is that most of my readers
have been White former citizens, who lived in East Cleveland, when I was there
too.The people you meet and hear on
this program lived there during the 1990s and later.They are all African-American.The hopes, values and sorrow they express are
the same as mine and those of most of my readers.